


Modern Girls

by septmars



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21969580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/septmars/pseuds/septmars
Summary: Fleabag and Claire on a roadtrip across Finland.
Relationships: Claire & Fleabag (Fleabag)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	Modern Girls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dialux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dialux/gifts).



“Oh my god, this is such a terrible idea, I can’t believe I’m doing it.”

“Claire━”

“I mean, do you even know how to drive here? Have you got an international driver’s license? Why am I letting you drive? I should be the one driving. I should!”

“If you just━”

“I must be mad. Everything has been going so _well_ , with the business, with Klare so of course I have to seek out chaos and problem to make everything worse. I just can’t let myself be happy, can I?”

“Claire!” she forced out. “We’re already out of Helsinki. If you have any regrets, you should’ve said it 40 kilos ago. But you didn’t. So calm down, okay? We’ll be fine.”

It had been a whim. After the wedding and everything, she had the mad idea of visiting Claire in Finland and going on a trip across the country with her. In a car. Just the two of them. For a couple of weeks, maybe. Her cafe was doing remarkably well; she could afford the time off. It was so incredibly fantastic, Claire wouldn’t agree.

So of course her sister did agree.

Apparently, she never took any of her vacation days for the past five years, she said, and HR had been bugging her to take some, because of some Finnish rule on vacation days or something like that. And she had always wanted to see Finland, the rest of Finland, so why not? She was New Claire, after all. New Claire was fun. New Claire was game when her quirky younger sister proposed a mad dash across the country for fun.

So she had closed up the cafe and bought a roundtrip ticket to Helsinki. Claire had told her to come in the fall; the days weren’t so short or long and they could see the aurora borealis up in Lapland. Claire had booked their hotel rooms and made their itinerary, right down to where they should stop for petrol. Claire had picked her up at the airport and gave her a brisk tour of her new apartment (large, roomy, with tasteful minimalist furniture in the Scandinavian style. So chic) and the next morning, she handed her the keys to her car.

“I’ve already booked our hotels and programmed our route in the car’s GPS,” she said, fastening her seatbelt. “I _would_ like to drive, but I’ve been so busy with work lately that even Klare noticed. He’s been driving to me work lately.”

“How kind of him.” She focused on the wheel. Right. Finns drive on the right. That’s all there is to it, really. The rest are the same. She can handle this. Deep breaths. “Is, uh, is everything alright with your divorce?”

“Oh, yes, yes, everything’s alright. Martin’s not taking it well, obviously, but there’s only the house and my friend’s representing me. She’s a really good lawyer━she has to with the fee she’s charging━”

“Oh, about that. Are you good with money? Because if you aren’t, I could━”

“No, no, no, you shouldn’t. Everything’s fine. She’s giving me a friend’s rate and I got a massive raise from getting this promotion so it worked out in the end. How about you? How’s the cafe? Still busy?”

“Yes, yes, very busy, in fact I’m ahead of my loan repayment…”

And here they went pleasantly on, chatting about their respective careers and business until, 40 kilos outside of Helsinki, she had forgotten Finns drive on the right and nearly swerved into oncoming traffic. After that, Claire had roundly shouted at her like before and she had to pull over to the side.

"Claire━listen to me━Claire━Claire!" She shouted. Her sister stopped. They stared at each other. "If you want to drive," she said gently to her sister, "then by all means drive."

"No, I can't, I'm too tired━"

"No, you're not. It's just an excuse Klare made up so he could drive you to work each morning." She gave her a small smile. "Just drive."

Claire sighed. "If you insist."

—

In Tampere, Claire had booked them a room near a lake. The view was wonderful and the air was unlike London: fresh, clean, with a hint of pine. Even the receptionist was wonderfully fit, in the Nordic kind of way: tall, blonde━

"You are not bringing men to our room," Claire said. 

"Of course not! I'm not doing that anymore."

Claire regarded her critically. "Don't masturbate while I'm here either."

"I'll masturbate in the shower." She wiggled her eyebrows.

"Don't! Tell me about it. I don't want to know."

She laughed. “It was a joke. What’s wrong with you? Klare hasn’t been giving you the goods lately?””

“What’s with that turn of phrase? 'Giving you the goods'? Not like it's your business, but we haven’t been fucking at _all_.”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Is━is he impotent?”

“No, he’s not impotent!” Claire glared at her, and then sighed. “I just wanted to take things slow, alright?”

“Well, that makes sense.” They were silent for a moment and then she said, “I fucked the priest.”

Claire gasped. “You didn’t!”

“Yes, yes.” She nodded and laughed. “Just the one time though, but god it was amazing.”

“What happened? You didn’t fuck him in the church, did you?”

“No! No, we fucked in my house. Although we almost did it once, in the confession booth, but then God interfered.”

“What?!”

“No, I’m serious, as we were making out, this huge painting of Jesus falls on the floor. He took it as a sign that God was mad at him so we stopped.”

Claire laughed. “You are my hero. And then? What happened after? Are you two dating now?”

“Oh no, no.” She waved a hand. ”No, uh, we decided to end things. He chose God over me."

"Oh."

"Yeah, I mean I know I'm quite horrible, but being dumped for a thing that doesn't even exist"? Wow. _That_ takes the cake.”

An awkward silence descended between them. Claire looked at her sister, measuring her. She reached out a hand to her, but then, abruptly, she dropped it.

"Right," Claire said, clearing her throat. "Let's go to bed."

—

They decided to sample the local attractions in Tampere, which included, apparently, the only museum dedicated to Lenin left outside of Russia. The museum included many, many statues and busts of Stalin and Lenin (they met the first time in Tampere, according to their guide) and old Soviet propaganda posters that lent the museum a rather kitschy vibe.

“Quick! Take a picture of me,” she laughed, straddling a motorcycle statue with a wax figure of Lenin in the sidecar. 

Claire obliged. 

“Mum would _love_ this place,” Claire said, a little bit wistful, as they went about the exhibits. “She’s always rather socialist.”

“She’s a socialist because she loves the aesthetic, I think, or otherwise she wouldn’t marry a banker like dad.” She snapped a picture of a poster depicting a handsome muscled worker holding a hammer and anvil. “Oh, Mum loved this sort of homoerotic blocky font kind of thing. Did you remember the poster she made for my Year 9 Hamlet production?”

Claire smiled. “Poor Headmistress Leary. She was so scandalised. Well, anyone would be if they saw what Mum did to Hamlet and Horatio.”

“But it was such a riot! We had a record attendance because of that poster.”

“Of course you’d like it,” Claire said. “You’re exactly like her.”

“No, I don’t have her boobs—”

“I don’t mean your body. You have the rest of her everything, her sense of humour, her boldness, her charm, even her quirky little job—”

“But you have all the good parts of Mum! Her boobs, her silky luscious hair, her ambitions; you all have them. Dad adores you. Everyone adores you.”

“Not everyone,” said Claire, “Mum didn’t. She liked you better than she liked me. You’re her favourite child.”

“What! I’m not Mum’s favourite child, _you’re_ her favourite child. You’re _Dad’s_ favourite child. She dotes on you, gives you all the best gifts!”

“She does all of that because she feels slightly guilty for secretly favouring you over me. You know how Mum was. She feels guilty for disliking people. When she has people who she doesn’t really like over she lavishes attention on them, to make up for it. It’s the same with me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. Remember Mrs Guildford and the pies?”

“Well, you’re _Dad’s_ favourite child,” she countered. “He told me he doesn’t even like me that much. He likes _you_.”

“Because Dad and I are alike,” Claire said. “Mum and Dad are a bit narcissistic that way. They like their kids most similar to them. Dad and I, we’re the boring ones. You and Mum are the fun ones. That’s why Godmother doesn’t really like you. You remind her too much of Mum. She subconsciously sees you as a threat.”

She was stunned. “Wow. Since when did you have so much insight on our psyche?”

“I’ve been going to a therapist.”

“A therapist? What happened with the whole ‘bury your feelings deep inside and never talk about it?’”

“The company gives me free counseling sessions as part of their wellness policy, and I actually got comments from not taking them in my performance reviews. So I decided to take them. The Scandinavians really do take the whole work-life balance thing very seriously.” Claire looked at her wristwatch. “It’s nearly time for lunch. Klaire told me of a great restaurant here. Do you wanna go?”

“ _Yes,_ please. I’m starving.”

—

After Tampere, they drove to Jyväskylä, partly because she was quite fascinated by the many umlauts in the name. It seemed to her a very Scandinavian thing, umlauts. But Jyväskylä was also the home of a quite famous architect who was one of Claire’s favourite architects (of course Claire would have a list of favourite architects) and so they took a tour of his museum.

“He’s like one of the fathers of the minimalist Scandinavian style! I can’t believe you said he’s just ‘okay’,” Claire groused.

“It’s really not my thing,” she replied. “The minimalist style never worked for me. It just seemed a bit too...clean? And clinical. It just feels so cold, you know? When Boo and I talked about the cafe—”

She caught her breath. She remembered the day at the Sexhibition. Martin. Claire. _After what you did to Boo?_ It all seemed so far away now, but here in this museum—

“Hey. Are you alright?” Claire said. 

Her sister gently placed a hand on her shoulder, but she seized and shoved her hand away. They both froze.

Claire saw her expression, and she understood. 

“Sorry, I don’t feel too good all of a sudden,” she said. “I’ll wait for you at the museum’s cafe.” 

“Wait—”

But she already bolted.

—

Things were awkward between them ever since Jyväskylä. In their drive to Lapland, they barely said anything except to comment on the weather and the road and the music. She was glad Claire decided to rent a whole cabin; she didn’t think she could bear sharing a room with her right now. She quickly went to her room, planning to spend the rest of the stay at the resort’s sauna instead of facing her sister even if it meant missing seeing the aurora borealis, until she heard a banging on her door.

“Open up,” Claire said from behind the door. “I already went through the trouble of taking my vacation days and spending a lot of money on all of these alcohol, you are not going to ruin it by barricading yourself in your room.”

“When did you buy alcohol?” 

“Just now, at the liquor store. It was pretty far, so I don’t want my efforts to go to waste. Get out of your room. The receptionist said they’re expecting the aurora soon.”

She took a deep breath and opened the door slightly. Claire shoved a bottle of Finlandia through the crack. A peace offering. Well, she was always so easily persuaded when alcohol was involved, especially good alcohol. They head to the balcony to see the aurora.

For several minutes they sat together in silence, wrapped in thick coats, watching the dark Lapland sky, nursing their vodkas. Then, as if a switch was turned on, a strange glow began emanating and green streaks of light bathed the sky.

“Wow,” Claire whispered, breathless. 

She made a noise of agreement. Feeling heady from the vodka and the glorious lights, she said, “seeing this kind of makes me understand why people believe God exists. Imagine you’re some ancient cavemen and you saw this in the sky? Of course you’d have thought it was the work of some higher power.”

“Yeah.” Claire turned to her. “Listen. I’m sorry for what I said about Boo. At the Sexhibition.”

She heaved a big sigh. Drank some more of her vodka. 

“Well, you weren’t wrong,” she said, slightly slurring. “I basically killed her anyway.”

“What? No! You didn’t kill her.”

“Yes I did. I slept with her boyfriend and she— she—”

“Did you tell her to launch herself into oncoming traffic? No, no you didn’t. She did that to herself.”

"You don't understand, she loved him and I—" She felt hot tears pricking at her eyes and dashed them away. In the cold Lapland weather, her tears might froze on her face. But it wasn’t enough. Soon, she found herself sobbing.

"Hey. Hey. It's okay." Claire tried to put an arm around her shoulders, but seeing how she was wracked with sobs, she dropped it. "Listen. I know it's crass to speak ill of the dead, but she was a bit of an idiot, alright? No sane, rational person would ever think about hurting themselves when their boyfriend cheated on them. Hey. Martin did the same to me, you don't see me hurtling in front of a car."

"But it's worse! I _wanted_ it, okay, it's not like Martin at all. We both wanted it—"

"Oh for fuck's sake! Just because you're so attractive that apparently every man you came across wants to fuck you, doesn't make you guilty of fucking _murder_ , alright?" Claire shouted. 

She stopped her sobbing and stared at her sister.

"Fucking hell," Claire muttered, taking a big swig from her bottle.

The Northern lights danced above them. It was quiet here. There were only her and Claire’s steady breaths. If she believed in a world after death, she imagined it’d be like Lapland: beautiful, quiet, and lonesome.

“I miss them so much,” she said. “Mum and Boo.”

“I miss them too.”

“I feel so lost. I don’t know what to do without them.”

“You’re not the only one to feel that way. You have me.”

“You said you didn’t want to be my friend.”

“I’m not your friend,” Claire said. “I’m your sister.”

Claire reached a hand to her. For once, she didn’t turn her away.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! Couldn't resist writing this after seeing your prompt. Not exactly a roadtrip across Iceland, but I hope you still like it!


End file.
